After visiting in May last year, I made a trip to our local wildlife trust’s Strawberry Hill reserve not long after dawn this morning.

I’ve written about the site previously including how the 350 acre former arable farm has been left rewild since the 1980s and demonstrates how, if left alone, nature can recolonise land with remarkable success.

The purpose of my walk around the site today was to experience the sound of the dawn chorus as full as I’ve ever heard it in the UK. I’ve been thinking about doing this ever since I did the same last May and was astonished by the richness and volume of the sounds.

As I walked around the site, it was like bathing in the birdsong; completely shutting out all other sounds and focusing purely on the calls and songs coming from the sky, trees and scrub that surrounded me. I spend an intense, yet peaceful, two hours walking along the paths and rides through the site allowing the sounds to wash over me.

Here’s a video showing just a small fragment of the soundscape I experienced:

One of the main reasons for going was to hear the call of nightingales. Last year I heard seven singing males, much to my amazement and joy. Today they were a lot harder to find and, when I did, they seemed to be much deeper into the scrub, away from the paths. I heard distant snippets of their calls occasionally and only once did I find one close enough to hear its song clearly. This was the only disappointing part of the visit and I hope to go back to see if I can have more luck, perhaps in the evening, to try a different time.

If I can’t return this spring, I have no doubt that I will now spend the next year dreaming of this place and longing to have the opportunity bathe in the dawn chorus again.